


yet do I fear thy nature

by lutece



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Asshai speculation, F/M, I love young Melisandre so much, these two are soul mates bye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 14:51:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9128782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lutece/pseuds/lutece
Summary: Melisandre has seen Stannis since she was Melony.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic for got I can't believe it. I have been fascinated with Stannis and Melisandre for the past week and this is a mixture of book/show material; my inspiration comes from all the other wonderful fics in their tag.

Some nights the priests coveted her like they might have stowed away a treasure; _our red-eyed Melony_ , they called her, _chosen by R’hllor so young, gifted and skyward bound._ They would brush her hair and give her sweet buns, after, even though her hunger had seemed to have waned. Five years of feeding the fires of Asshai, where shadows kept their domain, and Melony had forgotten any semblance of a terracotta manse in the hot sun where Mother was, and Master with his rough fists, and the other slaves that gossiped about her eyes.

_I didn’t mean to forget Lot Seven._

_But I dropped the pot into the river. Green fire was trying to pull me in. Mother, why is all of me red now?_

She didn’t mind the priests laying with her, when they needed flesh. R’hllor said nothing to them about the value of skin; He only wanted Melony’s heart to burn bright and with cause, not to eat it like Master had. She was still young even as she towered over the others, and grew lithe, and she did not mind the old priests at all. Not when they called her forth, patiently, and never forced themselves betwixt her.

But Melony had grown a deep fear of the darkness that surrounded Asshai – the shadows all of them fought against. Once, the dark hid her in the manse from unwanted company; she used to blend into the garden despite her bright hair, still as a tree with no breeze, and stay unfettered for hours. She had liked the silence and steadiness. Now, R’hllor taught her there were beasts that infested the hearts of men in the night and made them hungry, and that if the fire in her womb went cold, she would be surrendered to His great enemy.

The night was so very dark and full of terrors by herself.

She kept many flames in her own small spire, and sat by them until her eyelids grew heavy with heat and weariness. She would not shut her eyes. It was by any means necessary to avoid being devoured. In concentration, her palms would be indented in red from her nails, and her face would grow longer, stretched.

Melony sat by her nightfires for hours, and, sometimes, R’hllor would grant her a sight different from burning embers. He would show her a vision like the one of green fire she was still attempting to decipher. He would show her a face.

Gaunt and almost skeleton-like, this face was. Dark grey, stale features, masculine. Always a man dressed in armour emblazoned with a flaming stag, the red ever prominent with her flames fuelling it. He even had a crown to match, sat neatly at his head, all polished gold twisting out of iron and making him appear his own burning sigil.

He was a king. The fire didn’t tell her his name, but he spoke to her. He didn’t call her Melony but _Melisandre_ , and he spoke harshly in Common Tongue. Words like _usurper_ , _throne_ and _mine_  spat out at her skin in the flames and weaved around her mind; they cropped up often when she saw this man. He took out a burning sword that stayed swift in his grip and cut through marshes of creatures built from nothingness, from _shadow_. He talked to _pretenders_ , that other word, without faltering, and commanded an army that fought slavishly for him.

When her nightfires, in the corner of her eye, began to burn out when she finally willed herself to bed, he spoke not only through R’hllor but through her mind’s eye too. 

_Melisandre,_ she heard, plainly in her head, eyes fixated at the dark. Perhaps it was the Common Tongue’s version of Melony; she liked it, and his voice, though hard and unyielding, soon wrapped around her just as the warmth of her fires did. 

_Melisandre_. She closed her eyes willingly, then, and let him shelter her. In the fires, sometimes she saw his hand on hers, and his arms about her. Guarded. Sometimes she saw him bring his sword beside them, and promise things she couldn't properly hear, something to do with staving them off from her. A king and his priestess.

__Mine_ , _he said, she imagined through ground teeth.

_As you are mine vision_ , she thought, and she learned to sleep again.

* * *

A dynasty had risen and fallen grandly in this other continent by the time Melony reached where R’hllor told her she was supposed to be. Selyse had been swayed enough now by Melony’s teachings to take her by the hand, tears in her eyes, and ask if she should please meet her lord husband. 

“My lord is harsh but true,” she said, speedily, blubbering like her mind was bursting forth. Melony had never seen more than the shoreline of Dragonstone due to a troubling Maester, but Selyse came to the wet coast to meet her every dawn, gladly. “You could make him see the Lord of Light just so, my lady.” 

“Do you think so?” Melony asked, droll, expecting Selyse’s enthusiastic nod. The woman was very closed, yet very easy to read. No love was given to her, not since she was a child, only the shadow of every other Florent. Melony had no wish to manipulate anyone into the Lord of Light's warmth, but if it was easier for her mission, then... “For I believe him to be the Prince that was Promised.” 

Selyse cried again. Then she was stone-faced when they came to the Stone Drum.

In something like a throne itself, facing the fighting sea, Dragonstone’s lord was broody as the will of the waves, but silent. Not like their crashing. 

Melony watched Selyse debating her approach to him for minutes, until he took it upon himself to clear his throat almost awkwardly and ask behind his great shadow, “What do you have need of, my lady?”

“A – visitor, from Asshai, my lord,” Selyse said in sections. “I have studied with her for some time, if you remember–”

“Cressen’s heretic?” he bit out. Melony felt no twitch in her face as she usually did with the distaste the Westerosi threw at her. “I remember only his want to chase someone from the keep this week.” 

Selyse balked and did not seem courageous enough to go on, but Melony found it easy to glide forward from her, and raise her chin, “That would be me, my king.” 

He said nothing for minutes either. Melony found it easy to wait after three centuries in anticipation for his birth amidst salt and smoke. 

“You must be mistaken in this foreign land, my lady. I am no king.”

“Yet,” Melony said. “You are the rightful king, Stannis Baratheon. First of your name. You are the Prince who was Promised, Azor Ahai reborn. I have told your wife of this prophecy and she has agreed. _R’hllor_ has shown me so.” 

Stannis stood from his seat. Slowly, but surely, a familiar gaze turned to meet hers. For a second his eyes flashed with flat surprise – _he has seen my eyes_ , she thought – and then it was her turn to be surprised at his swift acceptance of her statement.

“And what do they call you, my lady?” he asked, eyes curiously scanning her. _He is not pushing me away, because he is the one and he must know it behind his caution._ “What is _your_  rightful name?” 

Melony smiled, opening her palms. Her ruby glimmered at her slender throat; she had been awarded it from the priests so long ago now, something she had pined for as a girl, and now… Now the gaunt man that kept her from the terrors of the night looked at her with trepidation, wishing to hear more from her.

_I have waited three centuries for you, Stannis._

“I am Melisandre,” she told him, “and your will is mine, my king.” 

She would learn to sleep just once more.


End file.
